Hartford is renovating the old Weaver High School with a target opening of Fall, 2019. Hatchett said attendance has fallen from about 1,800, when Hatchett graduated in 1997, to under 300 at its temporary location at the Journalism and Media Academy in Hartford.

Hatchett says his roster is comprised of kids who attend a variety of Hartford magnet schools. Without a home court, they’ve been forced to play their entire season on the road. (Their six ‘home’ games have been played at Classical Magnet).

In many ways, the Weaver basketball teams are the only thing keeping the school alive.

“That’s the message that we give to the basketball team, that they have a huge responsibility,” Hatchett said. “The community support has dwindled down, drastically, for the school in itself. So the basketball team is the glimmer of hope in bridging this gap.

“When this school opens back up — and I’m optimistic we’ll be able to return to where we were — it’ll be very much because the basketball team was able to hold things together for this three-or-four-year period where things were really dark.

“I do believe if the basketball team wasn’t doing as well, it would be highly likely that the school would have gone away. That’s a strong possibility.”

Listen to the full interview in the audio player, above. Remember, if the embed doesn’t show, you can always listen by clicking here.

Rundown

0:00-8:56 – Quick Top 10 Poll rundown

7:15-24:58 – Weaver coach Reggie Hatchett

35:31-End – Wrapping up.

Correction: After the podcast, Hatchett said he was mistaken in saying his team beat Windsor three times during its 2016 Class LL runner-up season. That was actually during his 2015 state championship season. Windsor beat Weaver twice in 2016.

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